The (mostly) American Girl focused blog of a cranky black woman who calls out the majority of the fandom and company BS. Reviews, doll details, crafting tips, and open critique of American Girl, the AG fandom, and the many issues it has.

#‎AGDoCGotYAmerican Girl, keep giving us Dolls of Color for Girls of the Year.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Casual Fridays: R.U.B.Y. and Sapphire

R.U.B.Y. and Sapphire.

While AG dolls are a big part of my doll collecting--and the major focus of this blog--I collect more than them as a doll collector. I collect a lot of dolls. One of my favorite types of dolls are Asian styled ball jointed dolls, which allow for unique customizations and personalization. I'm not going into the definitions of ball jointed dolls--hereafter called BJD--because there's tons of definitions. For my collecting purposes, if they have jointed limbs (cord-strung or otherwise), can be customized extensively, and are most likely from Asian countries, they're a BJD.

I only have a few--mostly because a lot of them, after a certain point, cost out the nose. That and I'm a brown doll fan and a lot of them aren't brown. I tend to like the smaller, portable ones. For example, Hujoo dolls.

These are my two completed Hujoo, R.U.B.Y. and Sapphire. Hujoo dolls are a Korean small BJD that range in height; these two are only about 10 inches tall at 24 CM. They're made of ABS plastic, not resin, so it makes them hella cheaper than resin ones. R.U.B.Y (which stands for Robotic Ultimate Beauty Youth--anime all over this) was purchased all customized like she was. I got Sapphire from Junky Spot, which is awesome in that they keep their stuff in stock so what they have on the site can ship ASAP. And yes, that's a Pokémon thing I've got going, with those two.

Naked dolls under the cut. You've been warned.

Sapphire bare, so you can see her detailing.

One of the major things I should point out about BJD is that they are fully customizable. In that unless you pay extra, your doll will come naked, eyeless, bald, lashless, and pretty plain looking. It is up to you, as the owner, to fix this. With paints, pastels, colored pencils, sealants, lashes, eyeballs and wigs, and probably clothes. Painting the face is called the face up, and the rest of it is generally called blushing. A face up and blushing can take hours, and people will charge accordingly for them.

While I did not paint up R.U.B.Y.--more details on her shortly--I worked Sapphire from scratch. This is the first time I've shown her nude since she was fully painted, though I have a few pics from when she first was being worked on. Every bit of her was a choice by me.

Chest, lips, and shoulders.

As a woman who loves freckles on brown skin, I freckled her everywhere.
She's got them on her face, chest, legs, arms, butt, and feet and hands.
There are even a few near her hairline. I clustered them in some spots. As for the blushing--that's ground up pastel chalk dusted on with a paintbrush, dusted on the body and face to give slight flushing and make her look less blank.

Sapphire's eyes are gorgeous, and you can't say otherwise.

The eyes are a Hujoo anime style with stars in the pupils, and the wig was purchased off eBay.
The full lashes were just some half size generic makeup lashes from Fred
Meyer that were the right size. I also gave her two toned lips. The wig was an eBay purchase--when you do BJD, you gotta look up wig sizes too. Lots of work and research.

Nail polish.

Sapphire also has nail polish and toe polish. It's chipping a touch, but that's from moving around and I can easily paint and reseal it back on.

Knees and toes, knees and toes.

Again, more shots of the body--specifically, the legs. I freckled and blushed everywhere, and then sealed the body with sealant spray. Some people use this stuff called Super Clear so that they can easily take off faceups, but I have my asthma to think of and don't ever plan to change her looks, so I used some simple acrylic sealant. Tester's Dullcoat also works.

Pedicure.

Toe polish. She needs a new pedicure.

Freckles all over the place.

When I say freckles everywhere, I mean it. Even under the chin. There's a few at her hairline too but I didn't feel like trying to readjust her wig after taking it off.

Butt and back legs.

Here you can see her butt and the back of her legs--again, with more freckles.

Some BJD come with external genitalia. I'm not here for that.

Pierced Ears.

The pierced ears are a customization as well. Basically I had to get a hand drill, a bit small enough, and a set of jump rings. That is not for the timid. You fuck it up and you gotta get new heads. You can also see my janky ass nails, as well as the blushing I did to the ears. Every little damn detail, up in this.

R.U.B.Y without clothes. Not as naked, per se.

R.U.B.Y. was not painted by me at all. I bought her completed for 60 bucks. The customizer picked out all the details, and I just decided she should be mine. Again, you can see the joints and the level of detail put into her design--down to the lines and the dots. Unlike Sapphire, she does not have inset lashes. Because Hujoo are strung, it is possible to take them apart to paint them with such detail.

Knees and toes and lines.

Her legs are silver metallic detail up to the thighs with various nifty lines. Also, her toes were removed, cause that's how the custom rolled.

Arm details.

Her arms also have that paint detail, up to the upper arm. Now, I will say I added the nail polish, because I like nail polish. Each joint was done with the silver paint as well in order to keep the level of detail.

Chest shot.

She had her chest painted over thusly, so techincally she is never topless. You can also see the shoulder and neck paint some in this shot, as well as some of the light carving into the plastic and the body blushing.

Backside.

Back and butt. She had "underwear" painted on so again, technically not nude. The level of details is what made me fall in love with her so hard.

Eyes, face, and cheeks.

Also her eyes. They are these super unique metallic eyes with no pupils and silver sclera, and they give her a dreamy, distant look. She's the quiet dreamer to Sapphire's semi-sass.

Moxie Girls shirt and overalls, eBay Hujoo shoes.

Hujoo are somewhat uniquely sized. Generally if you are buying them clothes off the shelf, you're going to have hits and misses. If you can sew, you are likely to get the best bang for your work. I tend to try to get stuff on sale or clearance so that if they don't fit, I'm not feeling a huge hit for tossing out clothes. With some trial and error, I have come up with the following:

Hujoo: They make the dolls. Of course the clothes will fit. I have a set of Hujoo jeans that are versatile, and I tend to get all my footwear from them as direct as possible.

Barbie/Similar: Some clothes will fit, but Hujoo are not as big breasted so there may be a top gap if the fabric is too stiff. Sapphire's panties had to come from eBay and sized for vintage dolls, because modern Barbies have this weird crotch that doesn't fit right. Dresses are generally okay, if you're ready for some length adjustments if needed. Shoes are not going to fit.

Moxie Girls: I've found these outfits almost always fit perfectly. Shoes are a loss, because Moxie Girls have weird snap on feet I can't get with. But the clothes fit really well.

Brazilla outfit, Hujoo socks and shoes. I sliced the cuffs off the jacket, the bow off the shirt, and the panties out of the skirt.

Bratz/Bratzilla: Shirts, tops, skirts, tights, and dresses almost always fit great; there may be some tightness and tweaking and some might not work. Jeans almost never fit because Hujoo have these wide curvy hips and butts. There may need to be stretching and adjustments in tops. Shoes are again, out of the question. If a skirt has a built in panty, cut that shit out. Otherwise the skirt won't get up to the waist. You may also want to snip off or remove belts from tops and cuffs of jackets, if they won't go nearly over hands. One of my fave tops for Sapphire fit great once I took off the attached belt.

Blythe: I have heard these patterns and clothes will fit. I have yet to try them personally.

Other: I found these cheap "Barbie" clothes at a Daiso store. (A Japanese dollar store, or here $1.50) The shorts for one set, however, might pose a tightness and then hip joints are best not flexed.

What to do for Shoes/Socks: Measure their feet, go looking on eBay. You are not likely to find fitting shoes anywhere else. Hujoo have 3.5cm long feet. R.U.B.Y.'s feet are a touch smaller due to her customization, but I still give her the same size shoes.

What to do for Panties/Bras: For panties, look up vintage Barbie panties. These are your best bet. For bras, I might not bother cause whatever.

Two girls with awesome looks. But a lot of work for it.

In Conclusion: Hujoo are awesome little dolls. Small enough to port around some, and of a nice respectable cost at base price of about 30-50 bucks. Since they're not resin, they cost much less. And I'm in love with the two I've got--both the one that someone else made and the one I customized myself. Not only are the possibilities endless for customization, they're hella poseable, with their multiple joints in so many places. However, the cost of a Hujoo BJD on sites is for the doll alone. Faceups/blushing take time to do unless you're willing to have someone else do it for you. Eyes and wigs can run up as much as the doll itself, and clothes are going to need to be tried out and you may find as much failure as success.

If you're the kind of person who just want to get your doll out of the box and play from jump, or want to easily be able to figure out clothes then I suggest that you skip Hujoo BJD altogether, unless you're ready to spend $50-200 bucks over the doll's base cost itself to get it to you all customized up.

Welp. I've been going back through your blog for the past 3 days or so and it only took me until I got back to this post and saw Sapphire to realize I've been following your flickr for say... 14 months! You know not like the fact that you have the same name on there was a tip off or anything. I'm really bright you know. I'd missed you on there so I'm glad I found your other outlet recently! Also you were the first person who inspired me to check out Hujoos! I bought one for a friend for her birthday and let her handle the customizing. I'm not sure where she's at on it right now though. :)

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Who's Behind This?

The blog of a 30 and some year old black pagan queer American Girl (and other toy) collector who generally can't stand a good portion of the AG fandom away from her little corners of it. Here we discuss the problematic issues surrounding doll fandoms, snark, review, and play. Also admin and founder of the A*G Wiki and American Girl Collectors forum.

This blog contains sharp opinions, reviews, factual facts, snarky takes on stuff, and loads and loads of cursing. Proceed on your own merits, cause your feefees don't come first. Mine do. I probably use the word "fuck" at least twice for some posts, so this blog is Rated R for Really Big Bitch.

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